The Uncertainties of Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae

Abstract

Abstract:This article explores uncertainty in Claudian's late Antique Latin epic, the De Raptu Proserpinae. It first focuses upon the areas of artistic provisionality, rhetorical inconsistency, and indeterminacy, and then compares and contrasts Claudian's political poetry. It suggests that the mythological De Raptu can be read as an acknowledgment of, and detached reflection upon, the uncertainties Claudian would have been familiar with as one involved in politics and as a client poet.